We deserve better than the manic squawking of swivel-eyed MPs intent on pulling the UK out of Europe, aided and abetted by little Englanders in the media

David Cameron was meant to be in the Netherlands today, drumming up Dutch courage to deliver his big speech on Europe.

He put his plans on hold when it became clear that the Algerian army’s deadly assault to free Brit hostages in the Saharan desert was under way.

It was the right decision, of course.

But this speech, ­supposedly the most important of his political career, was jinxed from the start.

He was due to make it last summer, but put it off to the autumn Tory conference.

Then it was “before Christmas” and finally January.

Even then, the schedule was decided by German Chancellor Angela Merkel, not by our PM.

She made him bring his Amsterdam music hall turn forward to today.

Cameron wants to ape his heroine Maggie Thatcher, who crossed the Channel in 1988 to give her anti-EU harangue in Bruges.

Stupid boy. Her Belgian tirade set in train her demise two years later, and he is following her.

The stakes are that high. Europe is the great issue of our time, make no mistake.

More important than William and Kate’s baby. Bigger than football or same sex marriages.

What we decide about our tomorrow in the European Union will affect not just us but generations to come, and not just here but from here to Gdansk and Athens.

Yet this critical issue is being decided by a squalid brawl within the Conservative Party, as the barmies fight to the death with the few sane Tories at ­Westminster.

This War of Dave’s Face is an insult to the nation.

We deserve better than the manic squawking of swivel-eyed MPs intent on pulling the UK out of Europe, aided and abetted by little Englanders in the media.

I doubt if we’ll get it.

The Prime Minister’s speech was certainly a long time in the writing. Dickens would be on to his second novel by now.

And the reaction to what he is unable to say already fills several phone books.

President Obama, the chancellories of Europe and even my aunt in Otley (if I still had one) have given their verdict. And it is mostly: “Thawat?”

Cameron was slow to speak because he didn’t know what to say about the issue that threatens to tear his party apart, as it did under John Major.

Who knows what he really thinks? About this or anything else, for that matter. He was supposed to offer leadership to his party and the country, but he lacks all conviction. Speech or no speech I suspect it won’t matter what he thinks.

This is yet more Dodgy Dave policy-making on the hoof, quite possibly on a police horse borrowed from Mrs Rebekah Brooks.

In any event, a speech is only swiftly-forgotten words. It isn’t a policy, much less a strategy.

When he finally gets his words out, he’ll bleat: “Give me a ­Parliamentary majority in 2015, and I will renegotiate a new deal with Europe, and then give you a referendum on, y’know, stuff, in, oh, whenever, maybe 2018.”

Meanwhile, the rest of Europe is undergoing physiotherapy for sides split by laughter.

Why should they abandon decades of hard-fought agreement over economic and political co-operation, just to save Dave’s face? They won’t.

That’s why I believe today’s harrowing anti-climax to his Operation Europe is the beginning of the end for Campaign Cameron.

Coalition cuts are cruel

TREASURY ministers promised that the disabled would not be hit by the latest round of spending cuts.

They lied.

Five charities have told the ­Coalition that more than 100,000 working-age disabled people will lose basic home support – washing, cooking, eating and dressing – when funding of council care is slashed.

Scope chief executive Richard Hawkes warns the care system has failed disabled people, condemning them to “a life without basic dignity and invisible to society”.

What else would you expect from a Government that sacked ­thousands of disabled Remploy workers in the run-up to Christmas?

Horsemeat? Neigh problem

HORSEMEAT in Tesco beefburgers created a huge stir. “No threat to public health!” whinnied officials.

An Irish meat firm is thought to be the source, so at least we now know what happened to Shergar.

But it’s just a matter of taste. Literally. They eat horse on the continent. And dogs in Korea and the ­Philippines.

The Chinese eat snakes, ducks’ feet and anything else that moves.

I’ve eaten horsemeat in Tajikistan. A bit smelly and tough, but perfectly edible. The vodka helped.

And you don’t have to eat a Tesco ­beefburger. Just saddle it up and ride it home from the shop. Hi-ho, Silver!

Spare a copper

TRADITIONALLY, you know you’re getting old when policemen look young. In my case, it was when all three political party leaders were younger than my children. But the adage isn’t true any more.

The cops are getting older because there’s a partial freeze on recruiting trainees, the starting rate has been slashed by £4,000 a year and serving officers must work longer for their pension.

Experience is important, but I don’t think a doddery police force is a very good idea. The criminals aren’t getting older – quite the opposite. This spending cut will make life less safe for all of us.

Goldman backtracks

JUST for once, I was lost for insults.

City slickers Goldman Sachs planned to pay monster bonuses to their greedy bankers after Tory tax cuts for the rich take effect, saving loadsa money.

They backtracked before I could deploy my full range of abuse.

Don’t worry, further ­opportunities will arise.

Dafta and dafter

THE mutual ­back-slapping season of showbiz awards is with us once again, with Baftas and Golden ­Sphericals (I think that’s right). In this crowded field, might I suggest some new prizes?

The Snifta, for the first man to buy the round. The Dafta, for the one who forgets his wallet (maybe not so daft, after all). The Lafta, who can’t take a joke. The Faffta, who can’t remember the order. The Gaffta, who spills the drinks. The Taffta (open only to Welsh). And the Waffta, for the bed-farter whose autobiography is titled The Wind in the Pillows

Ridiculous? What, more than the real thing? Gedoutofit!

Web of deceit

BT Internet stole my weekend. Without asking, or consulting, or telling, they changed my email address so I couldn’t send or receive.

I spent nearly three hours on the phone to Mumbai to resolve a crisis of their making.

Plans for a walk in the winter sunshine were ditched. ­Intolerable – and I pay good money for this. My brass, not the paper’s.

If I could get out of BT’s clutches, I would.

Maybe I should try escaping dressed as a German officer, though what my alter ego Captain Mainwaring would think I dare not imagine.

Harrumph.

Phil 'em up

AMONG the Diamond Jubilee gifts to the Duke of Edinburgh last year was a “sample” of Adnam’s beer (they’re usually more generous than that, I can tell you) and six bottles of Twelfth Man wine, an “elegant yet intense” chardonnay from Wirra Wirra, Australia.

Just thought you’d like to know.

Kate looks great

WHAT’S all the fuss about? The first royal portrait of the Duchess of Cambridge is quite sexy.

With that ­enigmatic, come-hither smile it’s obviously based on the world’s most famous painting, also thought to be of a pregnant woman.

So I think it should be known as the Mona Teaser.

True grit

WINTER has Yorkshire in its grip, with ice, snow and plummeting ­temperatures.

As the council highways spokesman didn’t quite say: “We’ll just have to grit and bear it.”